I am curious about the origin of the names for czech days of the week. Ours comes through old english, and those forms were based on roman gods and old germanic, and viking mythology. Sunday...day of the sun Monday...day of the moon Tuesday....Tyr's day...norse mythology..god of combat Wednesday...Wodan's(or Odin's) day...highest god in norse mythology Thursday....Thor's day...norse god of thunder Friday....Frige's day...germanic goddess of beauty Saturday..day of saturn....roman god Wednesday....one of those words pronounced completely different from the spelling.....could more usefully be spelled....windsday...day of the wind:wink:
Some my guesses: středa - střed týdne čtvrtek - čtvrtý den pátek - pátý den neděle - nedělá se (nepracuje se)
Pondělí - den po neděli - the day after "Neděle" Úterý - den vtorý - old slavic - the second day (after sunday) Středa - the middle day (of the week) Čtvrtek - čtvrtý den - the fourth day (of the week) Pátek - pátek - pátý den - the fifth day Sobota - international (jewish) Neděle - nedělat - to not work = free (nonworking) day Similar ethymology in other slavic languages Curiously enough - the hungarian days of week, some of them derived from the slavic ones: hétfö - hét fö = the head of the week kedd - ?? szerda = středa csütörtök = čtvrtek péntek = pátek szombat = sobota vasárnap - vasár nap = the market day
The ancient week started on Sunday (neděle from ne-dílo = no work). Any other day was called “pondělí” (from po neděli = after Sunday). The individual pondělí’s were counted, hence Monday was “first pondělí”, Tuesday was “second pondělí” (not second day!) and so on. Later, “first” was ommited for Monday and “pondělí” was ommited for the other days. The name for Wednesday was corrupted by a calque from German, hence original meaning “third” was shifted to “middle”. The name for Saturday was replaced with a loanword from Hebrew (most likely via Latin or Greek).
Just for comparison: Czech Pondělí Úterý Středa Čtvrtek Pátek Sobota Neděle Slovak Pondelok Útorok Streda Štvrtok Piatok Sobota Nedeľa Polish Poniedziałek Wtorek Środa Czwartek Piątek Sobota Niedziela Russian понедельник вторник среда четверг пятница суббота воскресение Serbocroatian ponedjeljak utorak srijeda četvrtak petak, petkom subota, subotu blagdanskoga, dan odmora, nedjelja Slovene ponedeljek torek sreda četrtek petek sobota nedelja Bulgarian понеделник вторник сряда четвъртък петък събота неделя
And these...spanish Domingo.....root latin...dominus...day of god...God's day lunes martes miercoles jueves viernes sabado Neděle a všechny ostantí jsou ponděle. Má dokonalý smysl.
Since it has been hinted at, but not explicitly said, "sobota" (and the other Slavic variants for Saturday) come from the Latin/Greek/Hebrew (in that order) for "Sabbath." The Russian "воскресение" (Sunday) means "resurrection."
The days here start from Sunday Spanish domingo lunes martes miércoles jueves viernes sábado Swedish söndag måndag tisdag onsdag torsdag fredag lördag Greek κυριακή δευτέρα τρίτη τετάρτη πέμπτη παρασκευή σάββατο at least the days from tuesday to wednesday are derived from sequential numbers and, again, the Saturday "international/jewish" Turkish pazar pazartesi salı çarşamba perşembe cuma cumartesi No idea here 8) Arabic الاحد الاثنين الثلاثاء الاربعاء الخميس الجمعة السبت Chinese 周日 周一 周二 周三 周四 周五 周六 again numbering 8)
Japanese: 日曜日 日=sun 月曜日 月=moon 火曜日 火=fire 水曜日 水=water 木曜日 木=tree 金曜日 金=metal, money 土曜日 土=earth, soil
Albanian diel hënë martë mërkurë enjte premte shtunë Roumanian duminică luni marţi miercuri joi vineri sîmbătă Hindí इतवार चन्द्रवार भौमवार बुधवार गुरूवार शुक्र शनिवार Latvian svētdiena pirmdiena otrdiena trešdiena ceturtdiena piektdiena sestdiena numbering again 8) Lithuanian sekmadienis pirmadienis antradienis trečiadienis ketvirtadienis penktadienis šeštadienis "jak by smet" (the same 8)) Finnish sunnuntai maanantai tiistai keskiviikko torstai perjantai lauantai Estonian pühapäev holy day esmaspäev first day teisipäev second day kolmapäev third day neljapäev fourth day reede laupäev
κυριακή = dominica (dies) = Lord's day (not God's day) = den Páně κύριος /kyrios/ = dominus = lord = pán Known from the expression Kyrie, eleison! = Lord, have mercy! = Krleš!. In Late Latin the days of the week were dedicated to the planets: Dies Solis (day of the Sun) which became Dies Dominica (Lord's day) Dies Lunae (day of the Moon) Dies Martis (day of Mars) Dies Mercuri (day of Mercury) Dies Iovis (day of Jupiter) Dies Veneris (day of Venus) Dies Saturni (day of Saturn) N.B. The ancient Romans had no seven-day weeks!
Slightly related: Can I ask where the names of the Slovak months come from? Well I mean obviously they seem to come from German, but I'm wondering why they don't have their own set of names like the Czech calendar does. And the Czech month names: Were they invented during the revival or were they taken from other languages or were they always part of Czech? The difference between Czech and Slovak here suggests to me that they were consciously adapted.
hindi hatavára - no idea ćandravára - day of Ćandra (a lunar deity... indeed, it is monday) bhaumavára - seems to me as "the earth day" (sanskrit "bhumí" = "earth") budhavára - day of Buddha (strangely it is woithout the gemination but I attribute it to simplification from the sanskrit etymon) guruvára - day of teacher (sanskrit "guruh" = "teacher") śukra - day of the Pure One (sanskrit "śukrah" = "clear, pure"; deity identified with planet Venus which corresponds to the Romance/Latin names) śanivára - day of Śani (Śani is a deity identified with planet Saturn; and yes, it is Saturday) finnish those, containing -tai are borrowings from ancient Germanic words ("tai" coming from "dai" which itself comes from "dag"... an etymon for English "day" and German "tag") Sunnuntai - Sunday, Sonntag Maanantai - Monday, Montag Tiistai - Tuesday, Dienstag Keskiviiko - keski = middle; viiko = week (Germanic borrowing) Torstai - Thursday, Perjantai - Friday, Freitag (it seems Finnish did not have F in those times so they rendered the name "Freya" as "Perja") Lauantai - Water day ("laguz" means in Germanic "water"); it has no cognates in English or German but the Skandinavian languages still call the day Laurdag/Lördag or similarly, in Germanic it had to be something like "Laugazdagz")